Six weeks until Christmas, and Santa dropped out, our emcee was stepping down, and the Night-of Coordinator couldn't commit. Oh, and the Christmas tree is dying.
Our neighborhood has a longstanding tradition (104 years, to be exact): On Christmas Eve, neighbors gather at the end of the street under a big spruce tree strung with colored lights.
Song sheets are handed out as the crowd begins singing “Deck the Halls,” then “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” and so on.
Have you seen Ted Lasso?
The Apple TV comedy-drama is one of our favorites. The show centers around Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) an American football coach who’s hired to coach a British soccer team. What he lacks in sports knowledge, he makes up for with enthusiasm, joy, and unshakable optimism.
His Pollyanna outlook on the team, their record, and the season ahead seems unrealistic and unfounded, but ultimately, it’s what brings them all together.
What I love about the show is his ability to build community, bring people together, and work toward a shared goal.
I see so much of myself in TV characters sometimes. I am:
The introvert version of Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation
A unique (and admittedly less caffeinated) combination of Lorelai and Rory from Gilmore Girls
A more independent (and less whiny) version of David Rose from Schitt’s Creek
The brunette version of Miranda Blake from The Mallorca Files (without the British accent)
Steve says I must be earning money from all the licensing deals—sometimes the similarities are uncanny. Like when Lorelai said, "Life's short. Talk fast." Or "I can be flexible, as long as everything is exactly the way I want it."
I felt it this week when I pulled on my teal Columbia fleece jacket for our morning walk. I noticed it in the cluster of red leaves at the top of the Maple tree on the corner and the baskets of Zestar apples (my favorite) at the farmer's market.
And then Wegmans had a sample of cornbread with hot honey on Saturday morning and all I could think about was a big bowl of Taco Soup and weekend football games (Go Dawgs! Go Bills! 🏈).
The Olympics Primetime coverage has been a nightly ritual in our house these past few weeks—the Women’s 1500m Freestyle (go, Katie Ledecky!), the Men’s pommel horse routines (go, Stephen Nedoroscik!), and of course, Women’s Gymnastics (go, Simone Biles and Suni Lee!).
All of it is impressive—the vault, the floor routines, the high bars—but the balance beam routine takes me right back to grade-school gymnastics classes…
SCENE: World of Gymnastics, Thursday afternoon class, early 1990s
I'm wearing a light pink leotard with silver polka dots. I stare down at my bare feet on the blue mat, then peer around the shoulders of my classmates ahead of me in line to see a camel-brown balance beam that's taller than I am.
Today, we're doing cartwheels on the balance beam.
Last week, we celebrated Independence Day here in the U.S. 🇺🇸
We went canoeing with Rory, I made a red, white, and blue charcuterie platter, and we reflected on the meaning of freedom, democracy, and independence and how this plays into our work as musicians and teachers.
Franklin was a Founding Father of the United States, signing the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and the U.S. Constitution. There's also the famous story of flying a kite in a thunderstorm with a key attached to test his theory of electricity. 🔑
But it turns out there's a lot more to learn.
I climbed onto the stage, my black patent leather Mary Jane’s clacking across the hardwood floor. I sat down at the Kawai piano and placed my hands in C position. I was performing “A Short Story” from Suzuki Piano School, Vol. 2, which my teacher said was a challenging recital piece (I refused to listen).
I was 10 and perhaps overly confident because as I entered the final section, I caught a glimpse of the audience. The stage lights were bright and the room was dark—too dark to see anyone’s faces, thankfully, but it was impossible to miss the steady red light of the shoulder-mount camcorder my dad had perched on his left shoulder (remember those??).
The room grew quiet for a moment when the lights dimmed, but applause quickly broke out as soon as he stepped onto the stage.
This was the ninth and final concert in a year-long journey through the Beethoven Piano Sonatas (all 32 of them) performed by Eastman faculty member Alexander Kobrin.
Since September, he's presented a program of 4-5 sonatas in consecutive order on the 1st of each month, all from memory.
We were about to hear his first attempted public performance of Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106 (known as the Hammerklavier).
I watched an online symposium recently about musical creativity and AI and… I have thoughts.
In one sense, it's incredible how fast the technology is developing, its current capabilities, and its potential in the future.
It's also disconcerting.
There's no denying the powerful capabilities of Generative AI and its potential to support and enable our work as musicians, teachers, thinkers, writers, and creators. But I think it's important for us to consider: Is it helpful or hurtful?
Here we are, five weeks into the New Year.
Maybe you're settled back into your routine or maybe you're still adjusting to the changes this year brought. Maybe you've abandoned your New Year's resolutions (studies indicate that 80% of people have by now) or maybe you're using February as an opportunity to restart.
Wherever you find yourself, here are three things I've been thinking about recently that may inspire or encourage you in this season:
